Thursday, September 20, 2012

It was supposed
to be a sequel to the movie "Valley of the Dolls" co-starring Sharon
Tate. The screenplay was changed to a "parody" and written by Russ
Meyer and ROGER EBERT.

Supposedly, at the end of the film there is a
gruesome murder scene inspired by the Manson family killings. After
watching the film, the similarities are pretty obvious to me. Here's
where the story gets kind of spooky...

Turns out that one of the
actresses in the film and involved in the movie murder scene is Erica
Gavin. She says on her website: “I grew up with the LaBianca kids. They
lived in Silver Lake, and I went to school with their daughter,
Susan.”.

Gavin says the Manson trial started on June 15, 1970, two days
before Beyond the Valley of the Dolls opened in Hollywood. She
went to court one day with a friend, Elliott Mintz, she met a Manson
family attorney, Paul J. Fitzgerald, and began dating him almost
immediately. Apparently, she moved in with him and had an
affair a few weeks later.

She says “Going through the whole trial was a
bizarre experience. I would get
letters from Susan Atkins and drawings that sort of showed mirror images
of me and her."

Gavin looks a bit like Atkins in her role as "Roxanne"
in the film. She says about Manson's "corner girls": "We’d visit them
on the street corner and give them money. I got to know
them well. One night, they just crashed on the floor of our home."

Note: You
may have to "refresh" the link or "continue as a free user", these
links sometimes "expire".About Erica Gavin

Erica Gavin is an American film actress best known for playing the
title role in Russ Meyer's 1968 film Vixen! Following Vixen, Erica Gavin
appeared in one more Russ Meyer film - Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
She also appeared in Roger Corman's women-in-prison film Caged Heat.
Erica Gavin currently resides in Beverly Hills, California.

Jump cut to 2006 when Michael Frost—a young, innovative director—is casting his first film, 3Stories About Evil, an experimental animated short composed of ‘single shots’. That is, while it’s a moving picture, it captures moments in time, freezing the characters in a novel and engaging way. Since it was released in 2008, 3Stories About Evil has played in numerous international film festivals and garnered four awards. Erica plays the vicious Mother in one of the 3 Stories–“The Story of Johnny” along with Billy Drago, Suzette Belouin, and Barry Brisco.

“I wanted to cast her against type. I wanted to see her as anti-sex, completely against it,” Michael Frost mentions while reminiscing about the reasons he chose Erica as the Mother of All Mother Fuckers. He continues, “working with her was a bit of a revelation. I could see there was something inside Erica that was dying to perform again. She was absolutely professional and incredibly enthusiastic.”

Michael can’t help but gush about the connection between Erica and Billy Drago. “She loved Billy; they got along very well. He gave her words of encouragement” that helped to foster that creative spark apparent in the film. When asked about how he was able to direct Erica to play an icy mother so diametrically opposed to her past characters, Michael offers, “I think her performance captured the cold-heartedness of the character. I told her to act like a black widow spider and look like a mosquito.”

“Keep on eye out on Erica!” Michael adds with a knowing wink. It seems that there’s something new on the horizon. “We’ve been working on producing a short film.” When questioned as to what we can expect, Michael waves his finger. “Expect to see Erica like you’ve never seen her

I knew about her a long time ago. There were lots of connections here. Another actress in the film, Lynn Carey, also claimed to know Jay. Hollywood was a very small town in many ways. When i googled Erica quite a while ago,a link to a very sexy scene popped up. It made me blush, haha

Thanks for positng this, Sunset. I tend to read things and never tink about posting them. I've never seen this film, mainly because I don't want to watch the murder scene.

i think one of the actresses in the film is supposed to wear one of Sharon's dresses from the original "Dolls" film, not sure if that's true though.

I agree. I'm sure they weren't filmed on the same day. I think the whole film was just a mishmash of different things going on in Hollywood, but it's definitely very weird that they ended up in the same film.

I watched the entire film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls last night. I would describe it as a "hollywood freakshow". It was semi interesting, at least enough to watch it all the way through. The murder scene at the end was pretty gruesome, and it did remind me of the Manson murders. Perhaps, people were trying to make money from the murders, before the killers identities were even known.

I also read Erica Gavin starred in "Vixen", the first movie to ever receive an X rating from the MPAA. She also starred in "Caged Heat", an old womens prison movie with lots of shower scenes. I had that movie on VHS years ago.

Here's info about the Sharon outfit also worn in this film. "Kelly" borrows an outfit from her "Aunt Susan" to wear to the party at the film's beginning. This is the same outfit that Sharon wore in the scene where Tony tells her that the studio has dropped his option. Sharon also wore it (minus the metal belt) on the soundtrack LP's cover.

The 3 female leads in "Beyond" also posed for publicity pix on a bed wearing the clothes worn by Sharon, Barbara Parkins and Patty Duke.

If anyone wants to watch Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and is having trouble with the Putlocker link I posted, it's also on Gorillavid. All of these links are free, DO NOT give anyone any credit card number.

Katie, Erica Gavin plays the role of "Roxanne" in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Yes, there are many characters in that movie, too many, that's one of the problems with it.

Gavin is involved in the "gruesome murder scene" slightly at the end of the movie. I don't want to "spoil" it by telling you what happens in case you are interested in the movie. There are actually some people that really liked that movie and it's music.

I just ran across what I thought was a very interesting interview with Erica Gavin on YouTube. The vid was uploaded in March 2012. Keep in mind this is a woman that claims to have known Jay Sebring and the LaBianca kids on her website. At one point she says her house was raided by the FBI, she says "we had pounds of hashish in the shed".

This was a very interesting post and not going to go off too long on a tangent.

It also has not much to do with Manson- BUT :)

I saw the new movie The Master this afternoon. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix are getting Oscar buzz for this movie..

the reviews say it is not an exact replication of Scientology but only loosely based.not an expose. That is true to an extent

But they dont know as much about Scientology as me.

Becuase this is going to be a major movie with much buz, and famous actors- some of you may see this movie....

if anyone is interested- after you have all seen it- I would be happy to point out the tons of subtle references made to Scientology throughout the entire movie- and there are many many of them there. the average person or Roger Ebert wouldn't get a-lot of them- but I did...

Katie, I'm not sure what year the interview was talking about, nor do I know what "Z-man" was supposed to be. That movie was just some type of Hollywood exploitation film that was supposed to appeal to prurient interests. Back in those days, most of the movies in the drive-ins and theaters around here were rated "G", like "Old Yeller".

Erica Gavin said on her website she has some type of activity planned for Halloween of this year I think. I haven't read it to see what it's about. I tried to message her to get some more info, she hasn't replied, and I doubt she does.

St. Circumstance mentioned Scientology. I've talked with, (and argued with) a few Scientologists online. I'm not a big fan of that "religion". It seems I read online that L. Ron Hubbard created that religion simply as a means to make money for himself. It operates similar to a pyramid scheme. You have to keep spending more money to purchase more advanced "religious materials".

FRIENDS

"Charlie Manson is a five foot seven schizophrenic, who if it weren't for the murder of Sharon Tate, would never be known or discussed. And I'm not saying he isn't funny and entertaining. I'm saying he's a dime a dozen criminal-class punk, who had the good fortune of running into some middle class pseudo-revolutionary white girls." -- Tom G

"The simple and undeniable truth, is that Charlie and the gang were/are the biggest idiots, morons and imbeciles on the planet." -- Leary7

"Them fucking fruitcakes could not pour piss out of a boot, with the bottom written on it."--Harold True